The main issue with sql is, that it is the wrong way around, which eliminates all tooling support.

You need to state what you want (select a, b, c) before you tell it from where to get it (from). And no tooling can predict that.

So switching this, moving from and joins in front of select, might be everything needed to fix sql.

danielheath

This is also my primary issue with vi.

d3w (`d`elete `3 w`ords) cannot be highlighted / indicated in any way ahead of time. If the motion specifier came first, it could be.

Fissionary

You might like kakoune (https://github.com/mawww/kakoune), which does exactly that: first you select the range (which can even be disjoint, e.g. all words matching a regex), then you operate on it. By default, the selected range is the character under cursor, and multiple cursors work out of the box.

It's also generally lean and follows the Unix philosophy, e.g. by using shell script, pipes, and built-in Unix utilities to do complex operations, rather than inventing a new language (vimscript) for it.

(Not affiliated with the creator, but kakoune has been my daily driver for years now.)